1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic translating apparatus which can enhance efficiency and accuracy of translation by a user carrying out a pre-editing process to an original in advance during a translation process, and to an improvement thereof.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, there has been such an electronic translating apparatus as follows. The electronic translating apparatus includes a key board, a CPU, a memory, a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and the like. A source language applied through the key board is entered as data into a translation module for a translation process prepared as a program by control of the CPU. The translation module translates the applied source language into a target language by using a dictionary data, a grammar rule, a tree structure transformation rule and the like prestored in the memory. The target language obtained by translation is provided to the CRT and the like together with the source language. The translation result is indicated to the user. When the electronic translating apparatus is an apparatus for translating English into Japanese, the source language is English, and the target language is Japanese. A sentence of the source language applied to the electronic translating apparatus is referred to as an original, and a sentence of the target language provided as an output result of the electronic translating apparatus is referred to as a translation.
In the above-described translation module, a morphological analysis is carried out to the original. By the morphological analysis, the original has each word identified by the part of speech to be extracted. The translation module carried out a syntax analysis by using a dictionary and a grammar rule based on the part of speech obtained by the morphological analysis to provide all possible syntax structures, resulting in provision of a plurality of translation results. Therefore, the user must appropriately select a correct translation out of the plurality of translation results. Since the translation module must provide all possible syntax structures, it took a long time to carry out the syntax analysis in the translation module, causing a decrease in translation efficiency. In order to increase the translation efficiency, another electronic translating apparatus has been proposed. The electronic translating apparatus can limit candidates for the syntax structures and increase the speed of the syntax analysis in the translation module by a user applying a pre-editing process to the original before carrying out translation. The pre-editing process here is to specify the part of speech of a particular word and the syntax structure at the time of the translation process in the translation module, by preparing a plurality of kinds of special character strings/sign strings which are not ordinarily used in the original to predefine them as "pre-editing signs", to be appropriately inserted into the original by the user, thereby supporting the translation process.
As described above, although an electronic translating apparatus which intends to enhance the translation efficiency by using pre-editing signs has been proposed, the electronic translating apparatus has had the following problems.
There was a possibility that the "pre-editing sign" coincides with a character string or a sign string already used in the original. More specifically, although a character string/sign string which has an extremely low possibility of appearance in an ordinary original is predefined as a pre-editing sign, there still remains the possibility of the appearance of a character string/sign string which coincides with the pre-editing sign in the ordinary original. Especially in an original including a numerical expression and the like, there is an extremely high possibility of coincidence of a part of the numerical expression with the pre-editing sign. In translating an original including a character string or sign string which coincides with the pre-editing sign, the translation module carried out the translation process by recognizing as the pre-editing sign the sign string or character string which coincides with the pre-editing sign in the original, causing a problem that correct translation was not carried out.
The work of inserting the "pre-editing sign" into the original in advance was itself troublesome. More specifically, in an electronic translating apparatus having pre-editing signs inserted, pre-editing signs used at a high frequency are signs for designating functions of: dividing a sentence; translating a sentence excluding a specific portion of the sentence; translating a sentence including a specific portion of the sentence provided directly as a source language, and the like. These functions are frequently used because they are easily designated compared to designation of a part of speech of a word and designation of a sentence pattern. When such functions are designated, a portion in the original at which the pre-editing sign should be inserted often coincides with a portion where a delimiter sign already exists based on a notational rule of the source language. For example, if the source language is English, "one sentence" is treated as one unit to carry out a syntax analysis in the conventional electronic translating apparatus. The "one sentence" here is a group of words between a period (.) and a period. Even if there exist a comma (,), a colon (:), a semicolon (;) and the like the "one sentence", these are regarded as delimiter signs within the "one sentence", and not as boundaries of the "one sentence" in carrying out the syntax analysis. However, in the original, these delimiter signs are reasonably used to indicate some division of meaning. Therefore, when the "one sentence" is divided at the portions of these delimiter signs, that is, the "one sentence" is translated in the translation module by inserting into the portions of these delimiter signs pre-editing signs having a function of dividing a sentence, the sentence is syntax-analyzed more accurately or at a higher speed than the case of direct translation of the original without inserting the pre-editing signs, whereby a more accurate translation can be obtained efficiently. The work of inserting pre-editing signs having a function of dividing a sentence into the original one by one is merely insertion of pre-editing signs into portions already having delimiter signs for dividing a sentence. Therefore, the work of insertion of pre-editing signs was cumbersome for users.
Description will now be given to an example of a pre-editing process. For example, when an original of "The invention uses the said components for the device." is applied, the electronic translating apparatus interprets the word "said" in the original as a verb to carry out translation. In order to correct this misinterpretation, for example, a pre-editing process is applied to the original so that the original is rewritten into "The invention uses the a.sub.-- said components for the devices." That is, a pre-editing sign "a.sub.-- " is attached to the word "said". As a result, it is possible to designate the part of speech of the word to be an adjective at the time of translation. In a patent related document, the word "said" is used at a high frequency, and the word "said" is used not as a verb but as an adjective at a high possibility. As similar examples, in a patent related document, a word "means" is used not as a verb but as a noun at a high frequency. In a finance related document, a word "close" is used not as a verb but as a noun at a high frequency.
As described above, in a document related to a particular field, a word to which the same pre-editing should be applied repeatedly tends to be specified. Therefore, when a pre-editing process was carried out to designate a part of speech of a particular word in the original as described above, in order to obtain a correct translation, it was necessary to carry out the pre-editing process repeatedly, whereby efficiency of translation work was low.
Other than the above-described designation of the part of speech, the pre-editing process includes designation of the relation between words in the original, designation of a group of words in the original at the time of translation, elimination of a word/phrase and addition of a word/phrase, and the like. In order to prevent a decrease of efficiency of the translation work caused by repetition of such a pre-editing process, a method is considered of carrying out global retrieval/replacement of a character string in the original which requires the pre-editing process. By using such a method, it is not necessary to repeat the same pre-editing process, thus the efficiency of the translation work is improved. However, in an extreme case, the global retrieval/replacement of a character string causes the original to be substantially rewritten, resulting in difficulty of understanding the contents of the original. For example, when a process of eliminating a word/phrase in the original is carried out globally, the original is rewritten substantially. Even if the original and the translation were indicated in a corresponding format, it was impossible to understand the contents of the original, causing a problem that it was difficult to determine whether or not the translation was correct.
When the same pre-editing process was effected on the original globally, it was not possible to carry out the process while confirming interactively the effect of the pre-editing process.